


Day 19- Mauling

by Broken_Clover



Series: Goretober 2018 [19]
Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Exhaustion, Fights, Gen, Injury, Plot Twists, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:49:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16492934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: Haehyun and Jam find themselves cornered by a pack of wild Gears.





	Day 19- Mauling

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I had to have one slightly funny day.

“Be very, very still…and we should be alright.”

Jam Kuradoberi was currently regretting most of her life choices. Of course she’d just _had_ to take the wrong way back to her restaurant. She’d just _had_ to say that she knew a shortcut. And now she was stuck in the middle of the woods with an old man surrounded by far too many pissed-off Gears for her liking.

Kum, in turn, looked apprehensive, but it was difficult to tell with his stern face. Jam could see him scanning the area around them as the wolf-like beasts prowled closer, trying to find an exit.

“How are we going to be okay?!” She whisper-hissed in reply. “There’s at least a hundred of them!”

“You’re a skilled Ki-user, are you not?”

“I appreciate your confidence, old man, but how good do you think I am?!”

Kum went quiet again. Jam would have started screaming at him if she didn’t know that would make everything so much worse. She could be impulsive, but she wasn’t an idiot.

“I can only tune within a certain radius…”

“Oh, well that’s just perfect, isn’t it?”

“…Miss Jam, I need you to listen to me. Very carefully.”

“Huh?” Her anger softened at the slight tremor in his deep voice. “What now?”

“When I tell you to, I want you to run.”

“What?!” Jam just barely managed to keep herself from shrieking in shock. Was he honestly saying what she thought he was?

“I know you’re fast. I can distract them for long enough for you to run. I can tune enough of them to keep you safe.”

“But what about you?”

The Gears were getting testy, drifting a bit too close as they bared their fangs. Kum turned to Jam with a determined look.

“There’s no time. Now go.”

“W-wait, I-”

“GO!”

The woods suddenly became filled with noise. Kum let out a loud bellow, with discordant tuning strings twanging. It was just as quickly countered with the screeching howls of a dozen wolf-Gears.

Jam didn’t realize that she’d started running. Her feet moved on their own volition. The sound of the battle was already growing distant.

Betraying her own common sense, she forced her feet to slow and turned back. The sight awaiting her was not a pretty one. The Gears were clambering onto Kum even despite the repeated tunings to shut many of them off. She watched as razor-sharp teeth sank into his body, pulling and tearing mercilessly.

She reached a hand out back towards him, but heard a shout.

“DON’T LOOK BACK! KEEP RUNNING!”

So Jam ran. She ran and ran until her legs burned. Every so often she would glance over her shoulder to see if any of the Gears were following her, but ever since she had left Kum behind, none of them had appeared.

Jam didn’t become fully aware of what had just happened until she breached the forest’s edge and back into town. Her exhausted legs collapsed under her, and she landed on her knees, panting heavily from the exertion. Tears pricked her eyes, but she didn’t know if it was from the tiredness, or from what she had done.

Kum had told her to run. Jam felt no less guilty.

What had those Gears done to him? She felt far too tired and afraid to immediately venture back in- but if she did, what would she find? A torn-apart corpse? A body riddled with wolf-bites? Someone was going to realize what had happened, and Jam would have to tell them everything…

“Jaaaaam?”

The low, raspy drawl made the chef scream in terror. The sudden adrenaline made her scramble to her feet, whipping around with Ki-laden fists in preparation for a fight.

“Kum?”

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Somehow, he was alive. The old man had definitely looked better, but aside from some cuts and gashes, he looked miraculously unharmed.

“You’re okay?”

“Not- not okay.” He stuttered oddly. “Jam, just try and relax. I’m going to have to-”

With a low drone, he staggered in place before falling back. Jam could feel the loud thud as he hit the ground resonate inside her. He didn’t get up.

“Kum?!”

Unsure what to do, she scrambled onto his chest. CPR. Would CPR do anything? He wasn’t bleeding, so what was wrong? Why had he suddenly dropped and gone so still? Was he dead?!

Jam heard a loud whir, unlike any noise she’d heard the man make before. She jumped off of him out of panic, watching with a mix of terror and confusion.

To her absolute shock, she watched the old man’s chest fold out with a pneumatic hiss. She saw panels of metal underlying what she had thought was flesh, which in turn hid cables and wires underneath them.

A tired, high-pitched groan reached her ears. Jam watched a hand extend out from the inside of Kum’s motionless body. An unfamiliar girl stood up, looking frazzled and exhausted as she coughed and blinked rapidly.

Jam was too dumbfounded to manage speaking. She watched the girl shake her hair out, slide out of the compartment that was apparently located in Kum’s chest, and turn back to glare at the robot.

_“Gae-sae-kki!!”_ She shouted, kicking the still figure in irritation. “You useless thing!”

“Uh…” Jam tried not to stare. “…Who are you?”

“Hmm?” The girl turned around, looking almost as equally confused. “What are you talking about, Jam? You know me!”

“…Kum?”

She smiled. “Haehyun Kum!”

“Haehyun…you were inside there this whole time?”

“It was safer this way. I had Jonryoku as a form of protection.” She gestured to the ruined machine. “But it seems it wasn’t as durable as I anticipated.”

“Ahh. I see.” Jam said. She then promptly fainted from shock.


End file.
